"Yes, to tell the truth, I don't like Veslovsky's tone," said
Darya Alexandrovna, anxious to change the subject.

"Oh, that's nonsense! It amuses Alexey, and that's all; but he's
a boy, and quite under my control. You know, I turn him as I
please. It's just as it might be with your Grisha.... Dolly!"--
she suddenly changed the subject--"you say I take too gloomy a
view of things. You can't understand. It's too awful! I try not
to take any view of it at all."

"But I think you ought to. You ought to do all you can."

"But what can I do? Nothing. You tell me to marry Alexey, and
say I don't think about it. I don't think about it!" she
repeated, and a flush rose into her face. She got up,
straightening her chest, and sighed heavily. With her light step
she began pacing up and down the room, stopping now and then. "I
don't think of it? Not a day, not an hour passes that I don't
think of it, and blame myself for thinking of it...because
thinking of that may drive me mad. Drive me mad!" she repeated.
"When I think of it, I can't sleep without morphine. But never
mind. Let us talk quietly. They tell me, divorce. In the first
place, he won't give me a divorce. He's under the influence of
Countess Lidia Ivanovna now."